


What Would I Do Without You?

by The Chronicler (AgentFrostbite)



Series: Being Open is Not a Weakness [1]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: (They both get a hug yay), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arguing is still communicating, Charles Xavier Needs a Hug, Erik Lehnsherr has semi good intentions that don't ever seem to come out good, Everyone actually talks about their problems, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Gen, Good Sibling Charles Xavier, Good Sibling Raven | Mystique, If the Charles/Raven shippers come after this I will be upset, Maybe LOOK where you're deflecting BULLETS Erik, Protective Raven | Mystique, Raven and Charles actually talk things out, Raven and Charles are siblings, Raven | Mystique Needs a Hug, Sibling Arguments, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Love, Siblings, This is NOT Charvles/Raven, and any communication is good communication, mutual understanding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:01:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27195490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentFrostbite/pseuds/The%20Chronicler
Summary: "You know, sometimes I wonder what my life would've been like if you hadn't found me here that night."Raven has spent all of her life in hiding because of what she looks like, what she really is. Charles has spent his whole life trying to protect Raven, but he's done it by making her hide herself. Well, she's done hiding, and she intends to make this brutally clear to Charles, in the sharpest way possible - after all, they're way overdue for a huge fight, and the day before they go to try to stop World War 3 seems like the best time to do it.(Rewrite of the pre-Cuba kitchen fight)
Relationships: Raven | Mystique & Charles Xavier
Series: Being Open is Not a Weakness [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985278
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	What Would I Do Without You?

**Author's Note:**

> Should I have gone back through my other author's notes and found out what I've promised y'all and try to write that? Maybe.  
> But I had this ready to go, and it's actually CANONICALLY THE FIRST EVENT IN ONE OF MY AUS, and it's actually already COMPLETELY written out, so I figured what the heck?

"You know, sometimes I wonder what my life would've been like if you hadn't found me here that night."

Raven knows this argument has been a long time coming, and there's definitely a better time to pick it, but she feels _alive_ and furious. Like a tiger, stuck in a too-small cage for far too long, and now she sees the door. She wants to fight.

"Sorry, what? You- oh!"

Charles, who was getting a beer out of the fridge, looks up and sees her and is conflicted between looking at her and being a gentleman. Neither of them is entirely sure where the switch occurred, between him being dazzled by her abnormal appearance and him seeing her without covering and getting frazzled. If the argument goes well, she might even get that answer, though honestly, she'll be happy if she can fling a few barbs and walk away with him gawping behind her.

"For God's sake, Raven! Where are your clothes? Put some clothes on."

"That's not what you said when you first saw me," she retorts sharply as she walks over and sits at the table. She makes sure to level her glare at him when she delivers her next line. "But I guess pets are always cuter when they're little, right?"

There's a flicker of pain on his face, but it's gone in an instant, well-hidden under the veneer of mild annoyance. It's condescending. She wonders if he knows that.

"Raven, I don't know what's gotten into you lately," he says, and oh look, there's the big brother again. "I thought you'd be in a good mood."

Charles crosses the room at a decent clip, just a little too eager to sit down. She can read the lines of anticipation, almost relief, in his shoulders and neck, that they're finally going to get to the root of what's been bothering her for so long. He looks at her face, into her eyes, trying to gauge how well she might receive the next line.

"Hank, he tells me he's found the answer to your…cosmetic…problem."

Momentarily, she sees red, but she forces her mental shields in place so as not to project the emotion too loudly – after all, he's agreed not to look into her mind; anything she pushes _out_ of it is fair game. She makes herself stay calm and watch his reaction, and on second examination, the way he stumbles over "cosmetic problem" feels…forced, almost. Like that was what he thought he was supposed to quantify it as and not what he truly believed it to be. Of course, she wants it to matter less than it does, so she pretends like it doesn't matter at all and gives him the silent treatment.

He sighs, and she sees twinges of fatigue come and go. "Are you gonna tell me what's the matter or do I have to read your mind?"

"You promised me you would never do that," she half-growls.

It feels like a threat, so she acts like it's one. This time, she does project her anger. He senses it, embraces it momentarily, and lets it go, returning an almost disappointed and definitely scolding look back at her.

"Until recently, I never had to use my power to know what you were thinking, Raven," he replies calmly.

"Well, maybe you never knew what I was thinking at all," she shoots back just as quickly. She's careful to school all traces of hesitation out of her body language and facial expression. Her eyes, unfortunately, she can do nothing about.

"Raven," he says.

"What?" she challenges, leaning in. "I thought we could share our feelings, Charles."

It's cruel to use those words against him, the ones his mother always used on him that he never truthfully answered. The same ones he extended to her after she almost broke a vase in a fit of sudden rage for how unfair Charles's stepfather was. To use their scared, secret promise against him is cruelty on a level Raven didn't know she could reach until the words left her mouth. She regrets it as she watches him lean back a little, like he's been slapped straight across the face. He takes far longer to compose himself than he has for the last five years.

"Don't use that against me," he eventually says, in a crisp and controlled tone. "That's _not fair_ , Raven."

She's heard that amount of measured control in his voice only three times before. When Kurt tried to 'discipline' her, when Charles and Raven caught Sharon trying to drink herself to death, and when the police accused him of murdering his stepfather. Now it's she who's leaning back, because she's never, never heard even the barest whispers of that tone used against her.

"Just…" he starts, then stops. Then leans in again, locking her in place with the intensity of his gaze. "Tell me what's _wrong_."

"I'm done being caged. I'm done hiding. If the world can't accept me as I am, that's their problem, not mine. I don't deserve to hide like some _fugitive_ because I was born different!" With the rising of her heart, the spilling of the helpless frustration that's been building for years, her voice lifts. "And I'm not going to hide in _my own house_ anymore, Charles! I won't be shamed into disguising who I really am! Not by the humans, not by the rest of them," she points upstairs, toward the rooms where the X-Men and their plus one are sleeping, "and not by _you_!"

And there it is, hanging in the open air for him to see.

He looks rather heartbroken.

"If they saw what you are," he starts, like he has started a hundred times, and Raven is _so sick_ of the speech, so she cuts him off.

"You know, Charles, I used to think it was going to be me and you against the world. But no matter how bad the world gets, you don't want to be against it, do you? You want to be a part of it."

Raven stands and begins to leave in a furious huff, fully expecting Charles to remain at the table, thinking and pondering how best to heal the chasm on his own. Between the two of them, Charles has always been the even-keel, slow and steady, calm and rational. Raven is the one who shouts and screams and cusses people out. Charles has always been there to get the guy to trip over his own feet and then play games with her afterwards until the stinging went away.

Now, though, she seems to have triggered or broken something, because she hears the chair scrape across the floor behind her, loud and harsh.

"Yes, I do," he grits out, and she turns at the tone. "Because the world is in here!" He stabs at his temple with his finger. "Whenever I choose it to be, sometimes when I don't. How can I not want to be part of the world when it's been a part of me since I was 10?!"

He sinks back into the chair and buries his face in his hands.

Raven got to meet Charles's real father. She was there a year before he died. Right now, Charles looks exactly like her most distinctive memory of his father: bent over, elbows on his knees, head in his hands in the chair in the living room. Old and world-weary and threads away from breaking.

"I can't choose," he murmurs. "I can't choose between my family and myself, and I wish to God that I could, but I can't make myself do it."

She walks back to her chair and sits down silently, waiting for him to speak again.

"Raven, I don't say the things I do because I mean to be selfish," he eventually states. "I'm not trying to cage you or keep you down. I want you to be all that you can be." He looks back up at her, earnestness written in every line of his face. "I was so lonely until you broke into this kitchen, all those years ago. Lonely and frightened and wishing for a friend, someone to experience life with. You have been the light of my life, my one reliable companion, and if this building was burning down right now and I could only save one person, I would drag you out of here and be sad, but never regretful. I _need_ you to help me stay grounded some days. You're right; it's not fair that you must stay hidden because the world doesn't want to be ready to accept you, and I want to see you prove them all wrong. But right now, people are scared, and they don't think when they're scared. I-I don't know what I would do if they took you from me."

He really doesn't. Charles, who has always had a plan, has always had at least some small idea of what he's doing, legitimately has no clue. He might mourn and hide himself in his books and bottles, or he might go on a rampage and kill hundreds of people with his mind, or he might simply break and stop moving altogether, and he does _not know_ what option he would pick. Up until recently, they are all the other has truly had, and as Raven stares into his sea blue eyes, she sees such fear and pain reflected in them, encased in the uncertainty that would follow the end of Raven's existence.

Suddenly, she feels a lot more guilty for picking this fight.

She takes his hand, slowly, hesitantly, unsure if she's allowed to, and when he grips it tightly, she feels almost foolish for thinking he could reject her for hurting him. "I know you're not a little girl anymore, Raven. That you don't need protecting and that you can take care of yourself, and I'm proud of you. But you're my little sister, and that means it's my job to watch over you."

"I know," she whispers, surprised to find her voice hoarse. "I know, Charles."

Finally, he looks away, unable to maintain eye contact. She looks at their hands, fingers locked between fingers in two white knuckle grips, and they sit in silence for longer than she cares to really think about. She can practically feel Charles spiraling, slipping further down the hole they both knew he would always need to face, on what he is to do now that Raven's aching and ready to spread her own wings and fly away.

"I'll never make you pick between me and you," she promises. "I won't ask you to do that again."

"My dear-"

"Look at me and tell me you understand," she cuts him off, looking up from their hands. When he doesn't, she prompts him again. "Charles."

He looks up.

"I will never make you choose between accepting me and accepting yourself."

"I understand."

She swallows as the burden lifts from her shoulders, the weight of the last year and a half of shame and bitterness rising and floating away. "Good."

There's still a lot of guilt in his eyes, more than she's ever seen and more than she ever wishes to see again. Charles is what Raven knows is good about the world – always learning, ever hopeful, immeasurably gentle, impossibly kind – and someone so good shouldn't be crushed the way he is. It reminds her of the weeks after Sharon's second wedding, when his stepfather moved into his father's study and room, when Charles stopped fighting and simply accepted defeat. It gives her an idea on how to cheer him up – and it's the least she can do, because she did sort of cause this, even if it needed to be said.

Raven morphs into the image of the cranky nanny Sharon got for them when they were 13, except her eyes are crossed. Charles chuckles upon seeing the old woman.

"What are you giggling at?" she asks in a croaky voice. "Don't you have schoolwork to do?" Charles continues to chuckle as she rattles off several other things Cross Eyed Maudie used to snap at them, until her head spins and she morphs back to her true form. "Okay, I can't keep my eyes crossed anymore; I'm so dizzy."

"Oh, Raven," he murmurs, and nothing feels like home quite like that fond tone. He watches her like he's trying to burn her memory into his mind. "What would I do without you?"

"Be a boring old fart locked in his room with a million books," she replies.

There's gravity in that question, and gravity in her eyes, even as she jokes the real answer away. They hold hands across the table.

"I love you, Raven," Charles says. There are tears shining in his eyes.

"I love you too, Charles," she replies, "no matter what happens in Cuba tomorrow."

They sit in silence, comfortable once more, for a long few minutes before Charles leans back and sighs. "We should get some sleep."

"Yeah," she agrees.

But they both wait another moment more before standing at the same time. She stretches and yawns and rubs at her eyes. Charles takes a half step toward her, falters, then simply smiles. Knowing that he's leaving her the option of simply walking away, she steps in and pulls her brother into a tight hug. He reciprocates it, and once they both let go and depart for their rooms, neither looks back at the other.

She's glad she picked the fight. Now was definitely the best time to do it.

* * *

Erik's going to kill Shaw. Raven doesn't know how Charles can kid himself that Erik would be alone in a room with that man, in a situation where he could kill him, and wouldn't. Charles's scream of complete and utter pain, that frightens her. By the time she makes it back to the jet, whatever it was has ended, leaving Charles doubled over retching and Moira rubbing small circles into his back.

"What happened?" Raven half-demands.

"Mmph," Charles groans, shaking his head. That's his 'can't talk, telepathically overwhelmed' groan, so Raven puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes until he rises suddenly and exits the shell of the jet, with both women following him.

Then Erik's floating out of the sub, with Shaw's body suspended in midair, and he begins a speech about how it's mutants vs. humans, how they are all in it together against an enemy that's aiming their weapons at the beach. For as strong a presence as Erik's projecting, Raven doesn't really think he's as fervent about his newfound cause as he wants to be.

And then it doesn't matter, because Erik's _right_ , they're going to fire on the beach, and Erik's catching the missiles, and turning them back on the ships. Because Charles tried to be noble and, unsurprisingly, said the wrong thing again. They're fighting in the sand as the missiles fly towards the start of World War 3.

Raven should move, should try to stop Erik, should do _something_. Charles has a point; the men on those ships have families. They're only doing as they've been told. How many of them really even know what it is they're firing at? Then again…Erik knows what kind of evil can be done by men doing what they've been told to. Isn't that what Charles is afraid of, too? An army sent to kill Raven because their boss told them she was a threat.

Erik elbows Charles in the face and then stands to send the missiles on again. The sound of a bullet pinging off metal fills the air, and all eyes turn to Moira. Her gun is leveled on Erik's head, and she pulls the trigger again and again. The second bullet, like the first, dings off Shaw's- _Erik's_ helmet. It's Moira's last cheap shot before Erik reacts. The missiles in the distance fall like rain as rest of the bullets are deflected off his hand, harmlessly veering off at odd angles into the sand beyond the pair, and-

" _Ah_!"

_Charles_.

He's standing, back arched and a hand over it, screaming in sheer agony. It takes everyone else a second to realize what's happened. Raven knows right away, though the disbelief freezes her in place long after Erik and Moira start moving.

Charles has been _shot_. Erik must've deflected one of the bullets into his back.

Charles goes down, barely manages to break his fall with his other arm, and he's moaning the whole time. Erik dashes for him, drops to his knees into the sand beside Charles, and cups his hand, calling the bullet from Charles's back. Charles screams again as the bullet moves, and that's what kickstarts Raven's feet.

_"What would I do without you?"_

She doesn't know what Charles would do without her. She doesn't know what she might do without Charles.

In the timespan between when Raven's mind hits that flashback and frightening realization, and when her mind comes back to the present, Erik has peeled his helmet off. The last of the missiles have hit the water, a good distance away from the ships, forgotten as the metal-bender cradles his injured friend. The rest of the X-Men behind her aren't moving, and she doesn't know why.

Erik catches Moira approaching and glares at her with such hate that Raven's steps falter. "You," he hisses. "You did this."

He lifts his hand and Moira's dog tags curl around her neck, tightening slowly, choking the agent. She grasps at them uselessly, gasping for air. Raven watches as Moira drops to her knees, and suddenly, she feels a wave of injustice on Moira's behalf. Moira, who defended them all fiercely against the asshole CIA agents at the facility before Shaw arrived. Moira, who was sweet and kind when Raven struggled with accepting herself. Moira, who had stood with them, put her faith and her trust in them, risked her job and _her life_ for them.

Moira, who's getting very pale.

Raven tunes back in to feel a wave of desperation flowing off of Charles as he begs Erik to let her go. "She didn't do this, Erik. You did."

Erik looks down at Charles, accepts this truth, and the dog tags loosen. Moira starts coughing, trying to breathe deeply through her bruised throat to replenish the lost oxygen. Raven starts moving again, as Erik is going on about the humans wanting them to turn on each other, and how they need to stand together, and whatever reply Charles might have is cut off by Raven arriving and dropping into the sand.

"Charles," she murmurs.

He smiles wanly at her, then presses his eyes shut as another wave of pain washes over him.

Moira comes to rest beside Raven, and despite almost dying a moment ago, she's already working again. "Is the bullet out?" she half-demands, placing two fingers on Charles's neck. "Where did it hit? How badly is he bleeding?" She fumbles for a flashlight strapped to the back of her belt, hands shaking until she forces them to still enough to work the clasps.

Hank comes to their side, and Moira scoots further down so the actual doctor can examine Charles. Raven reaches her hand out for Charles's, and he takes her arm, clinging to her so tightly that his nails dig into her scaly skin. She hardly cares. Charles is still breathing hard and groaning, but he tries to sit up regardless, and ends up collapsing with a cry. Erik tries to support Charles sitting up, but Raven doesn't, and Charles isn't strong enough to sit on his own.

"No, don't- Charles, don't move," Hank orders, taking the flashlight from Moira.

"I-I won't," Charles promises, breathless. Then he furrows his brows, and Raven can feel him probing, testing, searching for something. There's a thick denial there, something he finds frightening, but she can't tell what it is he senses from his body language, and she's not willing to look away to find it. "Actually, I… I can't feel my legs."

And Raven's world stops.


End file.
